Pisadeira

One-thirty a.m. and a September heat wave, having rolled up from southern California, covered the valley under a heavy blanket of rainless clouds. The city broiled in sweltering, acrid humidity from which the night providing no relief.

Neither was there any relief outside the city where a Matte black Ford Expedition parked, all but invisible behind a sparse growth of Russian Olive trees. Occupied by Antone Smilie, Mila Lords, Erik Blackman and Peter James, it was stifling even with the windows rolled down. Body armor trapped heat as effectively as an overcoat, and any breeze that found its way into the vehicle did nothing more than stir up the heavy musk of sweat.

With her signature ponytail, Mila appeared more like a teenager than a thirty-four-year-old. Experienced beyond her years, she earned the position of team lead thanks to her high level of competency. Contributing to that competency was her fluency in four languages, including Portugese which, tonight, would likely come in handy.

Antone, a beefy man with sharp angular features, sat behind Blackman. He moved only to brush away the sweat beading on his brow, and run a hand over his militaristic, quarter-inch buzz cut. Blackman and James were smaller but deceptively strong. Sporting a mustache and short beard, Blackman was naturally bald while James’ faded, blond hair gave him the appearance of a young John Denver. However, “Peter James” and “Sweet Surrender” had never been used in the same sentence.

Still, no one complained or squirmed in discomfort although, out of boredom, James clicked his rifle’s laser off and on like an incessant blinker.

Fifteen feet away set an identical vehicle, likewise dark and silent. Occupied by J’vore Nelson, a.k.a. Mond for his verbose hatred of Mondays, and Patrick Tanz. Behind them sat two moderately large men and one tall, tough woman who played fly-half for the Salt Lake Slugs WRFC. Tactical Medic Providers, or the TMP crew, on loan from the FBI.

Silently uncomfortable, their thoughts focused on, aside from the heat, the upcoming operation innocently named Sweet Tooth. Nothing about the operation was sweet and no one looked forward to it, yet all were eager to get it over with.

But to everyone involved, just another day at the office.

Two a.m. rolled around and a pair of headlights approached along the nearby access road, several hundred feet away.

“Hang tight,” Mila whispered. Grasping the steering wheel for leverage, she twisted against her seatbelt to watch the slow moving headlights. “We’re standing down.”

No one muttered the displeasure they felt. Antone donned his night vision goggles, as did Blackman, and watched the white panel van pass by. Continuing for another hundred yards or so, it turned into the entrance of the Ojito Sugar Products facility and came to a stop. A twelve-foot chain link fence surrounded the perimeter and the gate was secured with a heavy log chain.

The team should have been in position long before now.

“Okay,” Mila whispered, not that it was necessary. “We blew our chance. When the boys downtown get their little snafu fixed, we’re going in diamond formation.”

No one voiced their thoughts aside from Blackman, who commented that he was keeping his Remington rather than swapping it for an AR-15.

The original plan had been to post Tanz and Blackman on each side of the front gate, twenty yards out, armed with 260 Remingtons. Mond and James were to be stationed twenty yards up the driveway on each side of the berm, while Mila and Antone snuggled in the spotty grass ten yards back from the gate. Geared up with body armor, body cams, and night vision, everyone was armed with knives, Glocks with four mags, AR-15s with four mags, concussion and smoke grenades, and a medic drop bag in case the TMPs ran into problems. Or the carnage was more than they could handle. The exception being Blackman who insisted on keeping his Remington, and Mila, whose weapon of choice was her Weatherby PA-549 shotgun loaded with G2 R.I.P. rounds.

Although Mila was as proficient with the Remington and AR-15 as the rest of her team, she was more comfortable packing her Weatherby in close quarters, such as tonight.

Authorizing Mila to pack her Weatherby, and a Glock 43 to fit her smaller hands, had been an eighteen month battle that Captain Marcus Tillen fought hard to win. The commitment and dedication he had for his people was reciprocated in loyalty.

When the van, which intel claimed would be transporting abducted civilians, likely including children, stopped for the gate, Mila was to announce themselves and order their adversaries to the ground. At the slightest hint of resistance, Mond and James would take out the driver and whoever was unlocking the gate. Mila and Antone would rush the van and take out the guards inside while Blackman and Tanz eliminated anyone escaping out the back.

Dangerous, absolutely. But Mila’s team had walked it down dozens of times to ensure the safety of the civilians. In addition, they had run force-on-force exercises using MILES gear. Now, they could only sit and watch the van disappear into the sugar factory.

After waiting a few additional minutes, Mila made her call.

“What’s your status?... I guess we don’t have a choice, do we?... Well, we just lost our opportunity... For me, pretty please?... Ok, call me... Fifteen minutes and we’re going in whether you’ve got it working or not... Thanks, appreciate it.”

Mila placed a second call, and a responding light appeared within the other vehicle. “The security techs promised that our mics and cameras will be up and running within fifteen minutes. We’re going in diamond formation and I’ll be on point.”

Mila gave the technicians an additional five minutes which proved to be the right call, as she was notified that everything was up and running. Giving her team a terse go-ahead, the six quietly exited the vehicles leaving the TMPs behind. After calling for an equipment check on her mic, which came through the ear pieces loud and clear, Mila called Command for a video check. Everything was in working order.

“We’re on,” she said and led the team quietly, quickly, to the main gate.

Bolt cutters were deemed too bulky for the operation, but using his flexible wire saw, Tanz had the lock cut within five minutes. Feeding the chain through the gate slowly, carefully so as to minimize the rattle, it coiled at their feet like a large, metallic snake.

Mila swung the gate open and led her men inside. Senses heightened by the unknown and the delicacy of the operation, the team proceeded cautiously, slowly, appearing as no more than black shadows on a cloudless night, should anyone be watching.

Ten months prior - late 2017 - an unassuming reporter working for a small, independent news organization broke a bombshell story that Ojito Sugar Products was, in fact, being maintained by a Brazilian cult. President and CEO of Ojito Sugar Products had long-term business dealings with the Governor, two state representatives, and a congressman in a hereditary relationship passed down through three re-elections. Ojito Sugar Products suspended operations five years ago and had since been in maintenance mode, yet continued receiving government subsidies that were justified by political word salad.

Shortly after breaking the story, the reporter disappeared along with her source evidence. A collusion of lawsuits put the news organization out of business and effectively buried the story. Fortunately, there were enough conscientious individuals who pursued the right channels that eventually resulted in tonight’s Operation Sweet Tooth. An endeavor that cost of several careers and left a trail of hard feelings.

In what was originally their operation, the FBI’s involvement was nixed and that was when the real infighting began. In the fallout, it was decided that local Special Forces - Mila’s team - would conduct the operation and the FBI would provide the TMPs. Doing so allowed the politicians and Feds to distance themselves if things went sour, yet share in the credit if the operation was successful.

Months of surveillance indicated that three to four guards armed with H&K G36s roamed the grounds. A lot of fire power just to protect a shut-down sugar factory. To complicate matters, these guards didn’t follow a set patrol, rather, they roamed the grounds at will and were often observed disappearing in a building only to appear somewhere else on the grounds. Guerrilla warfare in which Mila also exhibited competency.

Approaching the electrical shop, Mila froze, as did the entire team. Dropping to a crouch, they waited, listened. A quick gesture sent Mond around the back of the shop. Moments later came a scuff of feet on gravel and a guard stepped around the corner.

Surprised by the sudden encounter, his reaction was instantaneous.

“Polícia! Levante as mãos onde eu possa vê-las!” Mila commanded even as he swung his gun into position but never got the chance the fire. Flinching twice, he slowly folded to the ground like a deflating balloon. Mond wiped his knife on the fresh corpse before rejoining the team.

“Someone had to have heard that,” Mila whispered into her mic. “Spread out but stay in formation.”

Approaching the mechanical building on their left, Mila brought the team to a gradual halt. Listening, looking. No one moved, other than their heads, as they slowly surveyed the area through a two-tone of green and black.

No sign of anyone either visually or audibly, yet no one questioned Mila’s actions. While trivializing her instincts as “woman’s intuition”, it was an ability they highly respected. Waiting, exposed, and all the while becoming more concerned, they searched for what had brought her to a halt.

Painstakingly, as though progressing through her Tai Chi, patterns, Mila began moving once again. Whatever had stopped her hadn’t gone away.

With her Weatherby ready to fire at a moment’s notice, she crept forward making not even the slightest sound of placing her foot, her weight, on the packed gravel. No sudden movements that might draw attention.

Passing the electrical building, a sudden explosion of gunfire blew glass from the metal door’s small window. James grunted and dropped. Mila took a hit to the chest, gasping as it knocked the wind out of her. Staggering backwards, she let go with three quick blasts from her Weatherby. The recoil continued propelling her backwards as the G2 rounds blew holes through the door and everything behind it.

Hugging the ground as bullets whistled over their heads from a second guard, Blackman’s Remington exploded with a pounding concussion. The 130 grain slug, traveling at 2900 feet per second tore flesh, shattered bone, and threw the man off his feet.

“Any one hit?” Mila said, catching her breath.

“I got a through-and-through in my leg,” James said, matter-of-factly.

“Stay here to evac.”

Then, scuttling over to James, Mila found small trickles of blood leaking both the entry and exit wounds.

“Get going,” he told her. “I can wrap it.”

“Move,” Mila ordered and called in the TMPs.

Mond scurried to the door from where the first shots came and put his shoulder to it. After taking a quick look inside, turned to Mila and gave a slit-throat gesture.

Hurrying now, still highly alert, the team double-timed it to the boiler house. The main door was locked, but as with the gate, Tanz made short work of the handle. Retracting the deadbolt with his knife and carefully extracting the latch, he eased the door open.

Only upon entering did they realize that it was equipped with a contact alarm.

“Shit,” Mila grunted. “We just ran outta time.”

The warehouse-size building was maze of tanks, electrical and steam generators, and processing units. Moving grates that carried fuel to the now silent boilers, along with a network of pipes and conduit snaked overhead where flues breached the ceiling to expel gasses, steam and smoke. Cement steps lead to an upper level that was terminated by large roll-up doors. Windows that lined the upper walls were blacked out. Stairwells on each side of the area led to the basement, however the light escaping from below was not enough to interfere with the goggles.

“Everyone’s equipment still operational?” Mila whispered and received quiet affirmations.

“Tanz, Antone, take the left stairwell. Mond, the right. Blackman, you and I will recon. After that you’ll post yourself at the door and I’ll follow downstairs. Keep your head on a swivel but work quickly. We don’t know where the alarm reported to or how long until someone responds. Now move it!”

Tanz, followed by Antone wove their way through the machinery to the far stairwell. Steep and narrow, it was constructed of metal grated steps and the floor’s overhang prevented Tanz from seeing much past the foot of the stairs.

“We can’t risk going in blind,” he whispered.

“We don’t have time to recon,” Antone answered.

Voices below became loud, agitated. Orders were barked in a foreign language that only Mila would have understood. Then the lights went out, plunging the basement in darkness.

“I just killed the power, so step on it,” came Mila’s voice in their ears.

“Sounds like five, maybe six unfriendlies,” Tanz whispered. “Mond, you get that?”

“Loud and clear.”

A muffled shout from below and Mond sent two short bursts of his AR-15 into the stairwell.

“I’ll draw their fire,” Antone said and thundered down the stairs.

Reaching the bottom, he paused just long enough to spray a burst of fire across the ceiling. The muzzle flash of two weapons turned on him while a third gunman sprayed the stairwell below Mond. Even the rolling concussion of gunfire didn’t drown the screams.

Just to make sure the pitch black stayed that way, Antone popped a smoke grenade from his belt and rolled it across the room as Tanz hit the floor next to him. Hard, but with control.

Mond’s rifle continued thundering from above, it’s echoes reverberating in the small space.

The scene unfolded in the bright green of their night vision. Originally a storage room fifty feet square with cement walls, floor, and ceiling, there was a set of double doors straight ahead leading to a freight elevator, another double set on the right wall leading to the mechanical room. A hole had been carved through the wall next to Antone, large enough for a person to walk through upright.

Directly before him set a row of ten beds, and another ten on the opposite side of the room where Mond was throwing lead at two gunmen. One unfriendly attempting to escape via the freight elevator ,whirled and sent a stream of tracers across the room at head level. Antone stitched him from hip to shoulder with a burst of fire. Two hard rounds punched him in the chest with rapid succession, preventing him from firing on the two men clambering through the hole in the wall.

Mond, along with Tanz’s crossfire, quickly took out their opponents with prejudice. The ear-shattering roar of gunfire echoed to an end, but the horrific chorus of screams didn’t.

Of the ten beds lined up in front of Antone, six were occupied by victims chained to the bedframes. Five kids lay strapped in beds on the other side of the room, all screaming, convulsing, and tearing their wrists and ankles on the restraints. It impossible to tell whether any had been hit by any of the flying lead, or if they were consumed by mindless panic. A wave of empathetic nausea swept through Antone and he turned away.

Mila charged down the stairs and ordered Mond to check the freight elevator and Tanz the victims. Antone followed his orders of pursuing the escapees while Mila assigned herself the mechanical room.

The room into which Antone stepped was large and sectioned with load-bearing cement walls. Doorways had been cut through them and naked lights strung haphazardly along the ceiling, spliced into wiring that was obviously not to code. A light switch hung before him, likewise spliced into the overhead wiring.

Empty boxes and sacks lay scattered about, and adjacent to the opening through which he entered set one pallet of canned goods and another of bottled water, apparently sustenance for the captives until their appointed sacrifice.

Antone negotiated the maze of cement walls, treading quietly on the moist dirt floor as he searched not only for the escapees, but escape routes, arms cache, or, and he didn’t want to think about it - charges for blowing the building.

Working his way through the utter darkness with the aid of his night vision, alert to every sight and sound, he deftly negotiated the rubble and scraps of building supplies. The muffled bang of a slamming door reverberated from somewhere ahead.

Coming to a wooden box with a hole in the middle, he kicked it aside to find a small pit that served as a latrine. Casting a glance into the shit-hole, Antone decided that it didn’t appear to be a viable means of escape.

Continuing, he reached the exterior wall and stopped before a fire door that wasn’t on any of the blueprints or building plans. Painted around it were graffiti and drawings in blood. Old blood. Dried. Black.

After briefly considering his options, he put a long burst into the latch blowing it to pieces, then yanked the door open, acutely aware that he was taking a chance on it being rigged with explosives. Instead, he was met with a loud and painful grating of hinges.

The door opened to a small sacrificial chamber roughly fifteen feet square. Cement steps framed both sides of a stone altar rising just over eight feet high and decorated with carved symbols he didn’t recognize. A bright, naked light bulb, apparently from a different power source, hung above a stone bowl that was affixed to the center of the altar. Momentarily blinded, he sent a short burst into the light, plunging the room into darkness.

The two men he pursued, lay across each side of the altar with their wrists slit and hanging over the bowl to catch their blood. No telling how many innocent lives ended in similar fashion, but judging from the amount of blood spatter and drips, it was considerable. One of the men slowly turned his head towards Antone and stared with unseeing eyes. He was already dead but his body didn’t yet know it. Legs jerked spasmodically and he slid off the altar, crumpling down the steps.

Only then did Antone notice the woman behind the altar, late seventies although it was hard to tell considering her condition. She hadn’t been there when he opened the door, he was sure of it.

A tall, gaunt hag with long grayish hair, she held him as tightly as a WWF bear hug with her dull, glowing eyes. Antone couldn’t tell if she wore clothes or not, as her body and what appeared to be robes, transformed from one to the other separate but one and the same. Wavering as seaweed in a gentle ocean current, her movements were fluid, hypnotic. With that same fluid movement, her face darkened with disdain. Dark crusted stilettos for teeth lined her gaping maw as she sucked in air as a dragon preparing to blow fire. Then erupted with the shriek of a thousand voices.

Pressure stabbed his ears and tore his body, shredding his soul, she bound herself to him, and broke the trance in which he was so tightly held. Antone let go with a burst of fire that blew the stone bowl of blood all to hell. Bullets puckered the dead man’s body, knocking him off the altar and chipped holes in the wall and altar. Stone and cement shrapnel flew in all directions, adhering to the walls with congealing blood.

He remembered no more.

***

Outside the tall picture windows of his great room, Cottonwoods lined a narrow creek of sculpted river rocks that was, in reality, a picturesque storm drain residents fooled themselves into believing was natural. Sprinkles of green leaves that hadn’t yet turned, punctuated the bright, golden leaves of those that had, the ripest of which were picked by fall breezes and deposited on Antone’s deck and patio furniture.

The ground-level floor of his townhouse consisted of a single-car garage and his man-cave. A room partitioned in half, the first of which was a fully equipped gym complete with stereo, treadmill, universal, weights, and dumbbell sets; the other a well-stocked kitchenette, pool table, and living room furniture strategically placed in front of a big screen TV.

Antone’s main living area was on the second floor. An open concept great room, dining room and kitchen there was a utility room and large pantry just off the kitchen. Master bedroom and bath took up the back half of the floor. Third floor contained a bathroom and three small bedrooms, all of which served as various office spaces. Visitors were rare and if anyone did spend the night, it was in bed with him.

On each floor set a well-stocked gun safe and another holding his thousands of rounds of ammo. Guns was his life, his comfort, his security. Now, they beckoned him as a wine cellar or beer cave taunts an alcoholic.

Staring at the idyllic fall setting just beyond his deck without enjoying the view, Antone’s face turned dark when his security system chimed. Still in the same sweats he had been wearing for the past week, he rose slowly from the love seat and gingerly walked to the glass patio door, staggering to maintain his balance. Sliding it open, he waited until an unexplained wave of fear subsided before stepping out. Gripping the railing, he peered upon a new Orange Metallic Burst Chevy Bolt EV. He knew the car. He knew the driver. For a brief moment, he considered leaping from the deck and dragging Mila out of her eco-warrior-chariot that she was so proud of, just to see if she’d still be proud of her little pumpkin after hammering her face on it a few times. He trembled with excitement at the what it would do to that cute little face of hers.

No. The neighbors would see or hear. Wait until she comes inside before doing anything rough.

Mila stepped out of her car appeared even more adolescent in her t-shirt, slip-on shoes, and form-fitting leggings that didn’t reach her ankles. Antone and most of the other guys looked for opportunities to work out with her, as she was prone to wearing thin and tight-fitting biker shorts and sports bra. Just to tease, no doubt. Now she had come to his home for the first time in the six years he had known her, uninvited, unannounced. Tonight all that teasing would come to an end and she’d have to pay up.

“Look at her,” the voice said. “She could be a little girl.”

A shudder of revulsion, and eroticism, raced through him.

“You know what she wants. Demanding it like she demands everything else,” the voice continued. “Why else would she come here? Alone, strutting her stuff. Daring you to take her down. Take her down hard.”

Oh, I’ll take her down all right, Antone silently answered. He glanced at his clenched hands clenching the deck railing, knuckles white. One good punch would knock her out cold.

“Where’s the fun in that? Fight makes it all the more satisfying.”

She’ll scream, he answered.

“Then shoot her if you must. You have three guns with silencers and she doesn’t need to be alive for what you want to do.”

Did he have time to unlock the safe, grab a gun, pop in a loaded magazine, and get back before she got tired of waiting for him to answer the door? Where would he hide the gun until the right moment?

No, he didn’t have time for all that. Besides, a bullet was too quick and clean, and sharing his pain was the only way of relieving it.

Reaching for the doorbell, Mila stopped abruptly as he remotely unlocked the door.

“Coward!” The voice spat.

“We’re team mates, bitch!” Antone said in a low, violent voice. Team mates have each other’s back. If I shoot her, then I’d have to shoot myself and that’s what you really want, isn’t it? Self-destruction.

“You WERE team mates. Not after today. Has she ever treated you like one? NO!”

Clamping his hands over his ears, Antone still couldn’t muffle the voice pounding in his head and staggered back to the love seat as Mila called out a tentative “hello” from the stairway. Waiting for her to appear, he poured another glass of Fireball cinnamon whiskey. It took both hands to guide the glass to his mouth. Taking a long slow drink and savoring the burn, he listened to her softly mounting the stairs. Slowly. Perhaps already aware of what she was stepping into, but women were like that and Mila’s intuition now frightened him. What if she read his mind, knew what he was thinking, planning, would she willfully sacrifice herself to him? After six years, she owed it to him.

Mila stopped in surprise at the sight of him, face drawn and pale, mussed hair, eyelids sagging.

“My God, Antone!”

“Look like shit, don’t I?” He said with a sneer.

A surge of violence ripped through his body as he stared at her. It took every ounce of willpower to control himself, keep himself from charging her. After obsessing over this very moment for the past week, he couldn’t decide on how to fulfill the ultimate gratification. Every fantasy that came to mind was better than the last and they flashed through his mind like movie trailers.

“I wouldn’t say you looked like shit, but what happened to you?”

“What happened to me? You mean since Operation Sweet Tooth? Took you long enough to check on me, didn’t it?”

Another surge of anger came from nowhere and slowly faded. Slopping a few drops of whiskey from his next drink, he tried acting nonchalant. Acting. That was a good term. He was memorizing the lines and actions of a different person because he was clearly not the same person who had accompanied Mila through the sugar factory over a week ago.

“Maybe Mila won’t put up a fight,” the voice offered. “Look at her. Here, alone, dressed in clothes that can be quickly and conveniently torn away. Demanding to be dominated and subdued.”

He looked down at himself and crossed his legs.

“Antone?” Mila’s voice, not the one in his head.

“Why the hell are you here anyway!”

Flinching as if slapped, she blinked in disbelief. The urge passed, leaving him with thoughts of mere seduction as his eyes nested on her leggings, tight against he crotch.

“Sorry,” Antone said and forced himself to look away.

“Sorry hell! I’m outta here!” Mila fired back.

“No! Wait! Please.”

His thoughts were wrong and he knew it. Knew that he couldn’t get away with it. Yet the voice told him it would be worth it. Satiating that violent lust was something he’d remember for the rest of his life, it would be his and his alone to relive over and over.

Maybe pity would draw her in close enough..

Squeezing the glass of whiskey to the point that his fingers turned white, Antone carefully set it on the end table out of fear that it would shatter in his grip. He cradled his head in his hands.

“Please,” he repeated as she turned to leave. “Stay. I’ve got to tell you something.”

Mila paused before warily approaching, more confused than angry. Keeping the love seat between them, she drew a stool from the breakfast bar and strategically placed it on the far side of the love seat. Antone smirked at her caution.

“Talk to me then,” she ordered.

“Something happened at the sugar factory.”

“You’re sure as shittin’ right about that.”

“No. Something really bad. It was in the hospital with me. Followed me home. I haven’t been myself ever since.”

“They had to restrain you.”

“I know. I woke up strapped to the bed.”

Clasping his hands before him, Antone looked upon purple bruises encircling his wrists.

“They did MRIs, CAT scans, toxicology, neurological, you name it and they tested you for it. They found nothing.”

“How do you know that?”

“Figure it out. You list Captain Marcus Tillen as your emergency contact so he has access to your medical information. Me being team leader, we discussed you, and don’t give me any shit about violating HIPAA.”

He looked at her face for the first time since his outbreak. Took a swig of cinnamon whiskey that brought tears to his eyes.

“Is there anyone you can call?”

“What, you finally ask about my family life after six years? The answer is ‘no’. My commanders were emergency contacts when I was in the military. Now I list Tillen. What do you care anyway?”

“What’s wrong with you? You’ve never acted like this before.”

“So what? This is the new me.”

Fighting the urge to leave, Mila continued the conversation. “I’m sure you’ve been asked enough times already, but what’s the last you remember?”

“Two guys with their slit wrists and the old woman. She’s here now. Somewhere. Maybe not alone. I think there’s others, the voices are different, anyway.”

“There was no woman, young or old. You weren’t at the debriefing, but we reviewed the entire operation and everyone’s videos.”

“I don’t give a damn about what you reviewed.” Patting the seat next to him, he said, “here, put your sweet little ass next to me and I’ll talk.”

“I’ll stay here, thank you very much.”

He shook his head, a shiver ran through him. “Old woman in robes standing behind the altar. I opened fire on her. Blew that bowl of blood all to hell and made Swiss cheese outta the wall where she stood. Don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in the hospital.”

“What you are calling a woman is nothing more than a distortion in your video. Considering the comm and camera issues, it’s totally explainable. Besides that, Tanz and I followed as soon as we secured the other rooms. That was within seconds of when you opened fire the second time. By then, the TMPs had arrived, we had the area secured and Blackman was still posted at the door upstairs. No one, especially an old lady, could have, or did, slip past us.”

“You wouldn’t have seen her, but I saw what I saw. She was at the hospital and now she’s here. All of them. Watching me. Putting thoughts in my head.” He added, “you have no idea what she wants me to do. She opened my eyes and showed me Hell. Showed me what really I wanted. What I have to have. Mostly from you, and you wouldn’t think it was pretty.”

Mila tensed. She could outrun him to the stairs, but down the stairs and out the door?

“I know what you’re thinking and the answer’s ‘no’.” Antone continued. “I know I’m irrational. We’ve all taken aberrant behavior training. I know that and still I can’t control myself. Not when I’m awake, and not when I’m asleep.”

“What do you mean asleep?”

Antone picked up his glass, took a drink and daintily returned it to the table.

“I get these uncontrollable fits of emotion when I’m awake. I feel like one wrong step and I’ll fall over some cliff I can’t see. I’m not dizzy and don’t have vertigo, but I get that intense anxiety people with acrophobia get in a skyscraper or on the edge of the Grand Canyon. One wrong step, one nudge, will send me over the edge. They’re showing me what’s going to happen. When I do manage to go to sleep, I have nightmares I can’t remember, but I know she’s causing them. Maybe the others, too.”

Antone smiled wryly. “I’ve developed apnea and sleep paralysis on top of everything else. Maybe I’m having mini heart attacks. That’s what it feels like, anyway.”

Mila watched as Antone carefully picked up his glass, fondled it thoughtfully, then quaffed it as though it were lemonade. Something about the way he moved.

“I feel her,” he eventually said. “The old woman. She’s here. I don’t know how to make her go away.”

“Have you seen her?”

“No, but I know it’s her. The same way that you know it’s your boyfriend making a noise somewhere else in your house. Or your cat playing with a toy even when you can’t see it. Sometimes she brushes against me, just enough to remind me that she’s here. Or she’ll make a noise somewhere in the house, a natural sound but it’s unnatural. But mostly, they talk to me. Not just talk, hypnotize. Never shut up, driving me insane.”

A tickle of nervous perspiration crept down Mila’s arm. “Can I open the windows? It’s so hot in here.”

“One wrong step and I’m on you like there’s no tomorrow.” He chuckled. “No tomorrow, that’s good.”

Mila talked her way through opening the windows. The patio door, she left open. If the situation became desperate enough, she could leap from his deck.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” she said, returning to her stool. “Especially from you.”

Antone poured the last of his whiskey and washed down a hand full of pills with it.

“Who said it’s coming from me?” He said, clearing his throat. “It’s happening to me, not coming from me. I’ll never go back to work. Not after this... this little mental breakdown. Maybe that’s all it is. I simply snapped. I’ll never make it past the shrink, and I sure as hell will never pass another MMPI.”

“A nine-year-old girl died in the hospital last night.” Mila said, changing the subject. “A girl we rescued. Rumor is that she died from apnea, although the autopsy hasn’t come back yet.”

“Strange, wouldn’t you say? Has anyone else either on our team or anyone we rescued experienced any strange maladies?”

“Maladies,” Mila chuckled. “No.”

“So, what happened after I went AWOL?”

“You were totally catatonic. I took your magazine and ejected the shell in the chamber, then went back for the TMPs. You were brought up in the freight elevator with the others. Wherever the boiler room door alarmed to, a carload of reinforcements arrived and we exchanged a fire. I think our guys hit a couple of them. They didn’t expect our level of resistance.”

Antone sat for a long time looking at his bottle and wondered out loud why he didn’t just drink from it. “I’m wearing down,” he said. “Slowly losing control. I can’t trust myself around other people. I can’t trust myself around myself.”

“Do we need to remove your guns?”

“You’re real funny, aren’t you? There’s a thousand ways to kill yourself and I’ve considered every one of them. I don’t have much else to think about. Even know how to swallow my tongue if I have to.”

“Speaking as a friend, you check yourself in somewhere. Whether you come back or not, you have to get better. You know that I have to report our conversation. I can’t cover for you.”

“First off, we’re not friends and never have been!” Antone whirled to face her.

“You know what? Maybe you’re right,” Mila fired back. “I’ve called, texted, emailed a dozen times over the past week and you haven’t responded to a single one. No, we’re not friends but that doesn’t mean I don’t care for you as a person.”

“You care for me AS A PERSON! That makes me feel a helluva lot better!” Veins bulged across his temples, his thick arms rippled, knuckles turned white as he fisted his hands. Glaring, lips quivering, the moment of rage passed and he continued calmly. “Let me tell you ‘friend’, there was something down there. A hallucinogen, poison, virus, hell, maybe that cult really did have a personal relationship with demons and now they’re pissed because I shot up their altar.”

“Friends or not, I’ll check in on you first thing tomorrow morning.”

***

Mila startled at the sight of Trent standing before her. Deep in thought, she hadn’t heard him enter the room.

“You’re jumpy tonight,” he said. “The funeral got to you today.”

“Yeah. On top of that, the detective investigating Antone’s death was there. I’m unofficially a ‘person of interest’.”

“You had nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t do anything to prevent it. On top of that, he’s a novice, a two-year-old detective so how good can he be?”

“You’re going to be fine. You lost one of your team members, it’s not the first time.”

“Well thank you so much for trivializing it,” Mila said, wiping her eyes to keep the tears from spilling.

Trent stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her protectively. For the two years they had been living together with marriage an on-again off-again subject. Mila now feared that it was too late, all things considered.

“Is anyone local? Maybe someone you can talk to? Figure out what’s going on?”

Mila said quietly, “just the girl who died in the hospital last week. Now I heard another kid we rescued has died, kidnapped from Mexico. Why kids? Over eight hundred thousand kids go missing in the U.S. every year. Eight million kidnapped worldwide. Why? For this kind of shit? We rescued half a dozen and now two are dead. What’s the point?”

“Go to bed. This past week has been rough, you’ll feel better tomorrow.” He said and kissed her on the forehead.

“I don’t feel like sleeping. I’m going to get a snack.”

“After all you ate today?”

“So what, you’re counting calories for me!” Mila fired back. “You know, just leave me the hell alone.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it that way.”

Trent hugged her tight, reassuringly. Mila stood without responding. Watching him crawl into bed, she went cold as his heat dissipate from her body. Sunshine, their large yellow tabby, promptly took her position between his feet. Curling in a loose ball, she stared at Mila with unblinking eyes.

Normally, Mila would have climbed into bed and read herself to sleep but tonight, hairs prickled on the nape of her neck and along her arms. Uneasy. Jumpy. Perhaps the presence Antone had spoke of had followed her home as well. Or the power of suggestion. More likely her imagination, and she was going to prove it was that and nothing more.

Quietly making her way through the small living room and wishing Sunshine would accompany her, Mila paused in the kitchen, listening, waiting, then into the dark hallway leading past the utility room where her reflection in the stacked washer and dryer windows gave her a start. Still refusing to turn on the lights just to prove her point.

The hair prickled on the back of her neck. Still, she refused to turn on the light. The day she was afraid of the dark, especially in her own house, would be the day she turned in her badge.

Mila didn’t enter the spare bedroom. Headlights of a passing car sent shadows running across the walls an ceiling, followed by a cold, musty draft. She backed away. She wasn’t about to pay credence to her fears by checking the closet and under the bed.

Mila returned to the bedroom, to the light, to Trent, and to Sunshine. If anything, she crawled into bed more troubled than before. A floor joist creaked in the spare bedroom sending a jolt through her. A window creaked with the sound of strained glass. She held her breath waiting for it to break.

Were these the normal sounds of the apartment cooling down? Or settling? Maybe from the neighbors overhead? Sounds that she had never paid attention to in the past?

Mila awoke with a start, although she didn’t think that she had been asleep. The closet door stood partially open but her attention was drawn not from within the black interior, rather, the dark corner of the room next to the door. Ambient light filtered in through the open window and the curtains waved slowly, just enough to send faint shadows moving across the wall. A bright moonbeam played across the floor thanks to a separation between the curtains.

The shadowed corner felt deep, cavernous, an opening into which she was about to fall. The moment of vertigo passed but the presence remained. Watching. Knowing Mila was now aware of it, moved so slightly that she thought it was her imagination. The power of suggestion, thank you very much, Antone.

Mila tried to turn on the light but her arms didn’t respond. Tried turning her head but was unable so much as flex a muscle.

A ripple of lighter darkness from the shadowy hole, like strands of floating cobwebs, weaving into a cohesive form. Mila’s eyes went wide although she fought to clench them shut. Shutting her eyes would shut out the entity, something so primal, as old as Creation itself. Playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse before the final kill. Heart racing, lungs paralyzed, she gasped for breath, her chest convulsing. Mila struggled to turn on the lamp, to break the spell, but could do no more than twitch.

Seventy, maybe eighty years old, long dirty silver hair that, like the robes covering her body, waved as if the air were an ocean current playing with it. Spindly arms ending in long narrow hands and thick jointed sticks fingers, pronounced ribs, skeletal neck, she moved towards the bed. An aged, grayish face that nonetheless appeared taut but certainly not youthful. Beak nose, deep set eye sockets that housed two dull glowing embers. At times she robes obscured her body and at times her nakedness revealed as they dissipated, only to reappear.

Sunshine issued a low throaty yowl and rose to her feet, back arched high, hair like a halo. Hissing violently, Sunshine leapt from the bed and darted out of the room with the crumpling noise of claws on carpet. Trent lay sound asleep.

The figure disappearing into the beam moonlight then reappearing much nearer.

Mila screamed but had no voice. Tried moving her paralyzed body. Sweat beaded on her face, collected under her arms and breasts. The thing strengthening by the moment, pulling her into the abyss of which Antone had spoken, that black opening in the corner of the room, sucking her soul from the shell of a body.

Grinning through cracked lips dripping spittle, the hag savored every painful convulsion as Mila’s body cried for breath that didn’t come. Pulling itself onto the bed, floating, yet dimpling the covers under her weight. One hand painstakingly placed. Then the opposite leg, so carefully set down. Gray wet teeth glistened around the black gape of her mouth. Now the other hand. Blankets puckered and tightened across Mila’s body and the hag savored every moment. No need to hurry, she had the entire night to enjoy Mila.

What little air remained in her lungs was forced through a clenched throat, body wracked with seizures from lack of breath, and the only sound a rattling hiss. Her screams were heard only in her mind. Kicking, thrashing, throwing her arms up for protection, and for all her effort, came to nothing more than muscle twitches.

Trent would have to feel the mattress sink under the demon’s weight. He would have to awaken!

No, she realized. They had slept together long enough not to be disturbed by a shifting of the mattress. Rolling, tossing, turning, getting out, getting in, they had learned to sleep through it all. She could die at his side and he’d never know. Suffocated, and he would be the only suspect.

Cupping Mila’s breasts with burning cold hands, forming a bone encrusted bra, the woman climbed onto her, digging her knees in Mila’s abdomen like a bull rider securing himself to his mount. Leaning forward, her long hair enveloped Mila’s face and blocked out all light and pulled Mila into her vast depths of eternity. Eyes inches away, glowing deep dull red, her mouth working as if she were mouthing words. Raunchy breath hung like a poison over Mila’s face.

Heavier and heavier the woman grew, compressing Mila’s lungs. Ears roaring from the mounting pressure, she sucked in breaths, each more shallow than the previous. Blackness filled her vision. A numbing, light-headed sensation swept through her. Chest cramping spastically.

Mila stopped breathing.